Design effective KPI dashboards with metrics selection, visualization best practices, and real-time monitoring patterns. Use this skill when building an executive SaaS metrics dashboard tracking MRR,
Install
The skill file stays in the publisher's repository.
Paste the copied command in a terminal. It installs this SKILL.md into that agent.
npx skills add wshobson/agents --skill kpi-dashboard-design -a cursor -y
Design effective KPI dashboards with metrics selection, visualization best practices, and real-time monitoring patterns. Use this skill when building an executive SaaS metrics dashboard tracking MRR, churn, and LTV/CAC ratios; designing an operations center with live service health and request throughput; creating a cohort retention analysis view for a product team; or debugging a dashboard where metrics contradict each other due to inconsistent calculation methodology.
name: kpi-dashboard-design
description: Design effective KPI dashboards with metrics selection, visualization best practices, and real-time monitoring patterns. Use this skill when building an executive SaaS metrics dashboard tracking MRR, churn, and LTV/CAC ratios; designing an operations center with live service health and request throughput; creating a cohort retention analysis view for a product team; or debugging a dashboard where metrics contradict each other due to inconsistent calculation methodology.
KPI Dashboard Design
Comprehensive patterns for designing effective Key Performance Indicator (KPI) dashboards that drive business decisions.
When to Use This Skill
Designing executive dashboards
Selecting meaningful KPIs
Building real-time monitoring displays
Creating department-specific metrics views
Improving existing dashboard layouts
Establishing metric governance
Core Concepts
1. KPI Framework
Level
Focus
Update Frequency
Audience
Strategic
Long-term goals
Monthly/Quarterly
Executives
Tactical
Department goals
Weekly/Monthly
Managers
Operational
Day-to-day
Real-time/Daily
Teams
2. SMART KPIs
Specific: Clear definition
Measurable: Quantifiable
Achievable: Realistic targets
Relevant: Aligned to goals
Time-bound: Defined period
Detailed sections (starting with ## Common KPIs by Department) live in references/details.md. Read that file when the navigation summary above is insufficient.
Best Practices
Do's
Limit to 5-7 KPIs - Focus on what matters
Show context - Comparisons, trends, targets
Use consistent colors - Red=bad, green=good
Enable drilldown - From summary to detail
Update appropriately - Match metric frequency
Don'ts
Don't show vanity metrics - Focus on actionable data
Don't overcrowd - White space aids comprehension
Don't use 3D charts - They distort perception
Don't hide methodology - Document calculations
Don't ignore mobile - Ensure responsive design
Troubleshooting
MRR shown on dashboard contradicts finance's number
The most common cause is inconsistent treatment of annual plans. Finance may prorate to a daily rate while the dashboard normalizes to monthly. Align on a single formula and document it directly on the dashboard card:
-- Explicit formula shown in tooltip / data dictionary
-- Annual plans: divide total contract value by 12
-- Quarterly plans: divide by 3
-- Monthly plans: use as-is
CASE subscription_interval
WHEN 'monthly' THEN amount
WHEN 'quarterly' THEN amount / 3.0
WHEN 'yearly' THEN amount / 12.0
END AS normalized_mrr
Dashboard shows green but product team reports users complaining
The dashboard likely tracks system uptime (a lagging indicator) but not user-facing quality metrics. Add customer-perceived metrics alongside infrastructure metrics:
Infrastructure (green)
User-perceived (add these)
API uptime 99.9%
P95 page load time
Error rate 0.1%
Task completion rate
Queue depth normal
Support ticket volume
Retention cohort looks flat — no variation between cohorts
Check whether the cohort query is partitioning by signup month correctly. A common bug is using created_at::date instead of DATE_TRUNC('month', created_at), which groups by day and produces cohorts too small to show trends:
-- Wrong: too granular, cohorts are too small
DATE_TRUNC('day', created_at) AS cohort_date
-- Correct: monthly cohorts
DATE_TRUNC('month', created_at) AS cohort_month
Real-time dashboard hammers the database
A live dashboard refreshing every 10 seconds with complex cohort SQL will degrade production query performance. Separate OLAP workloads from OLTP by writing pre-aggregated metrics to a summary table via a scheduled job, and have the dashboard read from that:
# Scheduled every 5 minutes via cron/Celery
def refresh_mrr_summary():
conn.execute("""
INSERT INTO kpi_snapshot (metric, value, snapshot_at)
SELECT 'mrr', SUM(...), NOW()
FROM subscriptions WHERE status = 'active'
ON CONFLICT (metric) DO UPDATE SET value = EXCLUDED.value
""")
Alert thresholds fire constantly, team ignores them
Static thresholds set once and never reviewed cause alert fatigue. Use dynamic thresholds based on rolling averages so alerts fire only when the metric deviates significantly from its own baseline:
# Alert if current value is > 2 standard deviations from 30-day rolling mean
def is_anomalous(current: float, history: list[float]) -> bool:
mean = statistics.mean(history)
stdev = statistics.stdev(history)
return abs(current - mean) > 2 * stdev
Related Skills
data-storytelling - Turn dashboard findings into narratives that drive executive decisions
How do I install kpi-dashboard-design?
Download plugins/business-analytics/skills/kpi-dashboard-design/SKILL.md from the publisher, or copy the path and open the repository. PlugMCP lists the skill and does not host the file.
Where does kpi-dashboard-design live?
The publisher keeps it at https://github.com/wshobson/agents.
Which agents can use kpi-dashboard-design?
Claude, Cursor, and Codex can read a SKILL.md you add from the publisher's repository.